


ardere

by CheckeredCloth



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-27
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-16 07:31:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/859513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheckeredCloth/pseuds/CheckeredCloth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek seems to think she will be okay.  Whether or not that's true is something she'd like to decide for herself.</p><p>A oneshot of the scene from "Unleashed."</p>
            </blockquote>





	ardere

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during the classroom scene in s03e04, "Unleashed."

It's not the first time Jennifer Blake's obsessive compulsive behaviors have affected her life in some disastrous way: ironing the curtains for her mother's yearly visit resulted in both a house fire and a humiliatingly placating conversion with two fireman and her incredibly sexist landlord; watching two hours worth of instructional videos didn't spare her a back sprain at yoga; and, well, no one needs to recall that time she fell asleep in the library at Uni and nearly got arrested for "breaking and entering."

 

All things considered, being both nearly killed and, seemingly, rescued by monsters has resulted in an optimistically low amount of property damage. And as for the possibility of her sanity being in question? That is a ship that has long since sailed, ladies and gentlemen: it sailed back before she decided staying up all night to perfect her curriculum was a good idea; it sailed way back before she decided _teaching_ was a good idea. And the monsters that apparently do exist in the real world? They could never be as scary as the ones she's inside her head. Her personal baggage could fill a conveyor belt at the Beacon Hill's Airport.

 

So, she's already paying good money to preserve her mental health. But her physical well-being? Not so much. And that's why she's sneaking about the school as if the building might explode at any moment, which she's sure wouldn't really surprise anyone at this point.

 

"Dammit," she mutters, as each clack upon the linoleum seems to announce _Here I am! Still early to homeroom like a lean, mean, teaching-machine! Let near-death experiences prevent perfect attendance? Not Jennifer Blake!_

 

So she speeds up, gaze darting everywhere from the rusted locker hinges to the cluttered announcement boards, but nothing snarls, claws, or leaps at her in the quiet morning light. Still, she can't help the sigh of relief as she closes herself within her classroom, a place whose feelings of safety stem solely from its familiarity. She leans her forehead against the cool glass of the door, a minimalist window designed to prevent gunmen from controlling the room from outside, and wonders if it can keep out all the things she needs it to, and some things she's not yet sure she believes in.

 

She shrieks when she turns and he's standing there.

 

"What do you want?" she asks, having picked up a teacher's pointer and wielding it like a weapon, though she could probably no more engage in combat with it than she could play pool with it.

 

He says nothing. "Are you going to threaten me?" she continues after a steeling breath. "Tell me that no one's going to believe me? Try to scare me? ....kill me?" she can't help whispering the last. If she has to, she'll fight to death rather than become a statistic. Better broken, bloody, and yes, _unbelieved_ , than something someone else can sweep under the rug.

 

He watches her for a moment, as if slightly confused by her reaction, and takes two steps forward. She takes two back.

 

"I was going to see if you were okay," he says. As if it's that simple. And yes, he did save her, but she's always been skeptical of savior types, even before she studied character archetypes; he's no Prometheus, and she's no shivering troglodyte.

 

"Physically or emotionally?" she replies, slipping somewhat into the conversational demeanor she uses for teaching students and dealing with unknowns. "Though, I guess that presupposes I was emotionally okay before any of this, and, according to my therapist, that's been debatable for a long time."

 

His lips twist, as if he's trying not to laugh, and she realizes she's been rambling about her state of mind, and even her therapist, and somehow he's following, as if conversations with recently de-distressed damsels is part of the every day. When he reaches for the pointer, she stands her ground, but some of the adrenaline is falling back, her subconscious relaxing after failing to detect a real threat.

 

"I think you're going to be okay," he says, as if she's passed some kind of test, and she can't help a small smile.

 

"Obviously you've never taught high school. In twenty minutes I have to start two dozen teenagers on _The Crucible_ , and I... honestly have no idea what I'm going to say."

 

"Well, why don't you start by telling them that it's an allegory for McCarthyism?"

 

"Is that a subtle way of suggesting that I shouldn't say anything? Because I won't." She's buried far worse than this. Never a statistic.

 

When he hands her back the make-shift weapon - the tool with which she leads young, albeit sleep-addled and inattentive, minds - she balks at the idea that he might be granting her agency over the situation: he, a young and decidedly dangerous man, allowing a woman to feel safe in world where great aspirations for equality have not yet trumped the unjust advantages of biology. It's a concept she's battled with, internally as well as externally, over the years, trying to convince herself that intelligence and courage can preserve her flesh and dignity from the angry lurker in the parking deck, or the stumbling group of hecklers trying to grab her hair as she passes.

 

She's never been able to believe it. Not when she knows better.

 

But she never really, truly feels safe, and when she found herself crouched in a teachers' storeroom of all places, envisioning vague headlines detailing her unremarkable death among a million other tragedies in the world, it somehow didn't all end. And she supposes she owes that to this man in front of her, his assistance more unbelievable to her than golden-eyed demons in the dark.

 

Maybe, she thinks, this bizarre, impossible, situation somehow isn't a power-trip or a threat on her life, and that his expression isn't saying _Here, I'll let you pretend to take back control of your life for a while_ , but _I'm sorry if I scared you._

 

And maybe that's something else she could let herself believe.


End file.
